Integrating Effective Transportation Performance, Risk, and Asset Management Practices (2022)

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54 This chapter presents a model for a 5-year roadmap for applying the guidance in this report to a hypothetical DOT. The model is informed by five workshops performed by the research team: four with state departments of transportation—VTrans, UDOT, MnDOT, and Caltrans—and one with TriMet. The process of developing the roadmap is illustrated in Figure 7. To enhance this research project, the team “test-drove” the guidance with each agency ref- erenced above. To accomplish this, the research team collected real-world detail and established best practices to support the focus areas and framework laid out in this report. The team also evaluated whether practitioners responded to that framework. In addition, the team collected anecdotes and descriptions that illustrated the benefits of integrating performance, risk, and asset management. For the hosting agency, the team provided a strategic, high-level roadmap including strate- gies and an action plan for approximately 5 years’ worth of further advancement in management area integration. A DOT asset manager said that “this workshop is hopefully like the last person to push off of a bobsled and then jump on the back—we already have momentum, but we need that one last push to be off to the races.” A roadmap contains the following elements: • A vision statement that is consistent across the full sweep of the DOT’s management area integration efforts. Ideally, it outlives personnel changes and even new administrations as a north star for the agency. It should be concise, direct, and not tied to specific time-bound tasks. • A set of time-bound goals that break down the vision statement into achievable, manageable, thematic components. Ideally, each goal should be tied to one or more metrics that can be used to track the DOT’s progress over time. • A set of strategies and an action plan that will achieve the goals in the time allotted. Actions are concrete, are assigned to individuals or groups of individuals, and have deadlines. Sequences of actions serve each strategy, and multiple strategies may be necessary to achieve each goal. • A clear strategy to evaluate and optimize integration efforts as determined in the action plan. This will include time- or progress-oriented milestones or both within the roadmap and will be used to refine agency integration efforts as integration maturity improves. Vision The DOT will fully integrate its performance, risk, and asset management practices for all its assets. It will draw on trustworthy, mature data to track performance in terms of asset condition, network performance, safety, and fiscal responsibility. It will set measurable goals for MODEL ROADMAP Minnesota GO MnDOT has employed an ongoing visioning program called “Minnesota GO” with a primary goal of better aligning the transportation system with Minnesotans’ expectations for quality of life, the economy, the environment, and so forth.

Model Roadmap 55   these metrics and track progress and projected progress toward them. It will perform life-cycle planning to identify annual work plans and lifelong work schedules for assets that minimize life-cycle cost in order to achieve the goals, and it will account for risk and uncertainty that could have an impact on the agency’s ability to achieve them. rough all, the agency will consistently build essential skills among sta, communicate, and collaborate to provide a safe, reliable, and economically benecial transportation system for all citizens. e vision will reect the current level of integration maturity within an agency and clearly illuminate the primary steps to be taken to further the development of integration. When a maturity self-assessment of the sampled agencies was conducted during the development of the test roadmap, dierent agencies were found to be at dierent stages in their integration journey. For example, UDOT had begun to enable increased utilization of its TAMP and of performance, risk, and asset management metrics to inuence project-level corridor planning. e agency needed to drive a concerted training of its TAMP to more sta in order to drive integration further throughout the agency. TriMet, for its part, had seen a robust data management system with industry gaps and overlaps in standardized terminology that required an agency eort to dene terms and data sources in order to engage cross-platform integration links. Goals e DOT will set out to achieve the following in the next 5 years: Approaches to Integration and Resource Needs. Document and enhance business pro- cesses to make consistent and forward-thinking decisions. Key processes include collecting data on a GIS backbone and making data-driven, objective, risk-aware decisions regarding mainte- nance, preservation, and capital investments. Data and Soware Needs. Improve soware functionality and architecture to get the most use out of each information technology investment. Performance, risk, and asset management (aka “business intelligence”) applications and fully integrated data sets help make data-driven decisions. OPTIMIZE EVALUATE Figure 7. Roadmap development process.

56 Integrating Effective Transportation Performance, Risk, and Asset Management Practices Data Governance. Properly govern data to maximize the use of system and application functionality and to allow the agency to make data-driven decisions. Personnel and Skills. Build a collaborative workforce that is strong in essential skills and that communicates across technical competencies and working groups to efficiently make and implement data-driven decisions. Policy and Agency Structure. Establish an overall performance, risk, and asset management integration task force to oversee the work outlined in this roadmap. Ensure that a champion/ czar is chosen with leadership support to assign homework to mangers across the DOT. Strategies and Action Plan The strategies identified in this section are direct considerations from the collaborative pro- cess of identifying challenges and setting the integration vision. Actions should have deadlines and clearly-identified responsible parties, and progress should be tracked by a champion/czar or strategy leader. To meet the goal for approaches to integration and resource needs, the DOT will • Develop performance, risk, and asset management business processes. These include data collection, modeling, capital planning, internal and external stakeholder response, staff training, and so forth. For all of these, standard operating procedures should identify respon- sible parties and cyclical schedules for recurring tasks. • Build a data-based, performance-based, risk-aware cross-asset resource allocation and capital planning approach. • Use life-cycle planning and asset management systems to ensure performance-based and cost-efficient maintenance investment. Build or enhance a maintenance management system for task orders, resources, and equipment. • Develop an internal collaboration space with key information, links to data, and a shared drive of documents related to the integration project. To meet the goal for data and software needs, the DOT will • Conduct a review of all electronic and hard-copy data and information relevant to performance, risk, and asset management. Identify systems of record and discard/deemphasize noise.

Model Roadmap 57   • Develop a data governance manual that includes a software catalog, a data catalog, a data dictionary, principles for data governance, and responsibility charts for all data sets. • Complete initiatives to develop bridge and pavement management systems that include inventory, condition, trusted deterioration models, and life-cycle planning. Complete initia- tives to develop or procure other asset, performance, and business process support software as determined by the task force. • Draft documentation for all software, new or existing. This documentation will follow a con- sistent format and include a user guide, a technical guide, technical architecture (i.e., a list of reusable services, databases, and software languages), and a system-specific data dictionary (or references to a common one). • Perform manual transcription of hard copy forms from across the DOT where they contain critical information. • Ensure enterprise GIS support, including data governance and software applications. To meet the goal for personnel and skills, the DOT will • Develop and implement a communication plan that defines how the DOT will communicate the purpose and benefits of management area integration throughout the organization, to the legislature, to sibling agencies, and to external stakeholder groups. • Establish a list of core essential skills, including technical and interpersonal skills, that high- functioning staff should possess. Incorporate these skills into training programs for current staff, onboarding programs for new staff, and screening programs for prospective staff. • Encourage interpersonal collaboration by sponsoring cross-functional coffee chats or other informal, unstructured interactions. In addition, build a fully functional online/computer-based collaboration platform with chat, video chat, voice chat, shared file storage, and collaborative editing. Allow and encourage the use of this platform for social interaction and morale building. To meet the goal for policy and agency structure, the DOT will • Identify who is responsible for each part of the integration effort and how these stakeholders will coordinate. • Identify a champion/czar and members of the task force. • Complete an integration program governance document that describes the roles and time commitments of major participants and hold to it. • Ensure that the business processes and standard operating procedures produced by the integration effort are approved and enforced by leadership.